In Memoriam:

Beowulf Sheehan/Xinhua

Amiri Baraka (1934-2014), was born in Newark, New Jersey, he was a well-known African American writer of fiction, drama, poetry and music, and thus one of the most widely published African American authors of his generation. He earned a B.A. in English from in 1954. He taught at for Social Research, the University of Buffalo, , State University, , George Washington University, served as professor emeritus of Africana Studies at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, and was co-director with his wife of Kimako's People, a community arts space.

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The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.6, no.7, February 2014 Baraka published his first volume of poetry, Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note, in 1961. From 1961 to 1963, he was co-editor with of The Floating Bear, a literary newsletter. His two plays, The Slave and The Toilet, both written in 1962. 1963 saw the publication of Blues People: Negro Music in White America, which he wrote, and The Moderns: An Anthology of New Writing in America, which he edited and introduced. His reputation as a playwright came about with the production of Dutchman at the in New York on March 24, 1964 as it won an Obie Award and was developed into a film. In 1965, following the assassination of , he moved to , where he founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (the company dissolved in a few months), and next, he returned to Newark, New Jersey and in 1967 he married Amina Baraka and founded the Spirit House Players, which produced, among other works, two of his plays against police brutality titled Police and Arm Yrself or Harm Yrself.

In 1968, Baraka co-edited Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing with and his play Home on the Range was performed as a benefit for the Black Panther Party. From 1968 to 1975, he was chair of the Committee for Unified Newark, a Black united front organization. In 1969, his Great Goodness of Life became part of the successful "Black Quartet" off-Broadway, and his play The Slave Ship was widely reviewed. Baraka was also a founder and chair of the Congress of African People, a national Pan-Africanist organization with chapters in 15 cities, and he was one of the chief organizers of the National Black Political Convention, which convened in Gary, Indiana in 1972 to organize a more unified political stance for the Black community. In 1983, he and his wife Amina edited Confirmation: An Anthology of African-American Women, which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, and in 1987, they published The Music: Reflections on and Blues, and The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka.

Baraka's numerous literary prizes and honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Award for Drama, the Award from The , a lifetime achievement award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the James Weldon Johnson Medal for contributions to the arts, the American Academy of Arts & Letters award, the of New Jersey and he is listed in ’s list of 100 Greatest African .

Baraka joined the ancestors on January 9, 2014 in Newark, New Jersey. His wife of forty-seven, Amina Baraka, and nine children (Kellie Jones, , Dominque DiPrima, Maria Jones, Shani Baraka, Obalaji Baraka, , Ahi Baraka, and Amiri Baraka) survives him.

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The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.6, no.7, February 2014 Amiri Baraka: A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1961) The Dead Lecturer (1964) Black Art (1969) Black Magic: Collected Poetry 1961-1967 (1969) It's Nation Time (1970) Spirit Reach (1972) Afrikan Revolution (1973) Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1979) Reggae or Not! (1981) The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader (1991) Transbluesency: The Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones (1961-1995) (1995) Wise Why's Y's: The Griot's Tale (1995) Funk Lore: New Poems (1984-1995) (1996) Somebody Blew Up America and Other Poems (2003)

Prose

Home: Social Essays (1966) Raise, Race, Rays, Raze: Essays Since 1965 (1971) Kawaida Studies: The New Nationalism (1972) The Creation of the New Ark (1975) Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka (1984) Conversations with Amiri Baraka (1994) Daggers and Javelins: Essays, 1974-1979 (1984) Eulogies (1996) Jesse Jackson & Black People (1996) Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1999) The Essence of Reparations (2003) Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music (2009) Razor: Revolutionary Art for Cultural Revolution (2012)

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The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.6, no.7, February 2014 Drama

Dutchman and The Slave: Two Plays (1964) Arm Yrself or Harm Yrself (1967) The Baptism and The Toilet (1967) Home on the Range (1968) The Death of Malcolm X (1969) Four Black Revolutionary Plays, All Praises to the Black Man (1969) Jello (1970) Junkies Are Full of (SHHH...) (1970) BA-RA-KA (1972) Chant (1972) The Motion of History, and Other Plays (1978) The Sidney Poet Heroical, in 29 Scenes (1979) Selected Plays and Prose of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1979) General Hag's Skeezag (1992)

Fiction

The System of Dante's Hell (1965) Tales (1967) Three Books by Imamu Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) (1975)

Other

Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing [co-edited with Larry Neal] (1968) In Our Terribleness (some elements and meaning in Black style with Fundi [Billy Abernathy]) (1970) It’s Nation Time (1970) Black Drama in America: An Anthology [co-edited, with an introduction by Darwin T. Turner] 1971 African Congress: A Documentary of the First Modern Pan-African Congress (1972) Spirit Reach (1972) National Liberation & Politics (1974) Revolutionary Culture and Future of Pan-Afrikan Culture [presented at the 6th Pan-Afrikan Congress, June 19-27, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania] (1974) Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women [compiled with Amina Baraka] (1983) Amiri Baraka and Edward Dorn: The Collected Letters [edited by Claudia Moreno Pisano] (2014)

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The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.6, no.7, February 2014